School Superintendent holds Public Meeting
By Shawn on Sep 28, 2006 in Events, Schools
From the Lowell Sun Briefs this morning:
DRACUT- Dracut School Superintendent Elaine Espindle will address parents’ concerns as it petains to the mold problem at the Parker Avenue Elementary School.
The meeting will be held tonite at 6:30 in the music room at Dracut High School.
Two modular units at the school were demolished on Monday because of a serious mold problem.
Classrooms had to be shuffled and a lunchroom was eliminated.
Espindle drew criticism from parents for not providing information in a timely manner.
This could be an interesting take, though it will in no way be as interesting as the rash issue that came up a couple years ago at the Junior High School.
In this case (as discussed earlier) there is some concern by parents that they were not informed earlier about the issue. From what I see, once there was found that a problem might exist, the administration immediately hired a firm to test the affected areas and to clean the remainder of the school as a precaution. Once testing proved a mold infestation, parents were notified, permits obtained, and the modulars destroyed. This was all within two weeks.
I think the bigger issue may be that all this was going on with no “heads up” to the members of the School Committee. They are the ones we hold accountable. They are the ones we go to when we have questions. Even if nothing is ready to go out to the public as of yet, it wouldn’t hurt for the Superintendent to be warning the School Committee of possible outcomes. Perhaps this was happening, but from the reaction at Monday’s School Committee Meeting, some of them seemed blindsided by the whole thing.
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Shawn | Sep 28, 2006 | Reply
I attended the meeting tonite. I was surprised that none of the School Committee members were in attendance.. but Nancy Mendonca showed up (just a little late.. but she stayed late to make up for it.. lol)
I understand May Paquette was out of town, and Ron Mercier is still out on his honeymoon. Why Joe Campbell and DJ Deeb were not there is not anything I could answer to. I do know that the question was asked of the Superintendent.
Very interesting meeting.
Catch the Lowell Sun on Friday. Dennis was there, and got some good reaction.
I, myself, did push to have the building retested now that there have been a couple weeks for things to settle. Hopefully that will resolve whether there are any more air quality issues.
Now, I understand that parents wanted to be notified earlier. But for such a significant issue, in less than 2 weeks the problem was identified, the buildings demolished and the area cleaned up.
But, as I indicated above, why were the School Committee not notified when the issue first came up?
A CONCERNED PARENT | Sep 29, 2006 | Reply
I WOULD JUST LIKE TO SAY THAT I THOUGHT IT WAS IRRESPONSABLE NOT TO NOTIFY ALL OF THE PARENTS OF THE PROBLEM WHEN IT WAS “DISCOVERED”. I DON’T THINK IT WAS PROPERLY ADDRESSED AT THE MEETING LAST NIGHT WITHOUT THE PROPER PERSONAL THAT COULD HAVE GIVEN US CONPREHENSIVE ANSWERS TO ALL OF OUR QUESTIONS. MY ONLY HOPE IS THAT AT THE NEXT MEETING, WHICH I HOPE WILL BE IN A TIMELY MANNER, THIS WILL BE ADDRESSED. AS IT WAS STATED AT THE MEETING, AND I AGREE, WE ALL WOULD LIKE TO KEEP THINGS AS THEY ARE FOR THE TIME BEING PROVIDING THAT OUR KIDS ARE SAFE. AFTER ALL, ISN’T THAT WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT?